With increasing demand for more information to be supplied to homes and/or businesses, network providers are constantly adding, expanding, upgrading, and/or switching their networks to improve overall optical communications network(s). Optical communications networks typically offer high-speed voice, video, and data transmission between users, such as providers, residential homes, businesses, government agents, and/or networks. Conventional optical networks include, but not limited to, fiber to the node/neighborhood (“FTTN”), fiber to the curb (“FTTC”), fiber to the building (“FTTB”), fiber to the home (“FTTH”), fiber to the premises (“FTTP”), or other edge location to which a fiber network extends. With increasing speed and capacity, various optical devices such as wave-division multiplexing (“WDM”) elements have been developed to manipulate optical signals, such as routing, splitting, merging, and/or dropping optical signals.
To route optical signals between various optical nodes or devices, a WDM system, for example, may be employed to handle optical signal routing. The WDM system, for certain applications, is able to multiplex a number of optical signals with different wavelengths onto a single optical fiber. A wavelength may also be referred as a frequency or a color capable of traveling across an optical fiber. Different wavelengths, for instance, can be generated by different lasers. With a WDM network environment, a typical fiber may be configured to carry multiple sets of network traffic using different traffic wavelengths. For instance, a fiber can be configured up to 88 channels wherein each channel can transmit a specific type of wavelength containing optical information.
A problem associated with a compact optical device such as a WDM device is that it is difficult to mount filters and mirror(s) in a small plate.